needle in the hay
by Ivory Muse
Summary: Sid is the only person who has ever told you the truth about yourself. — Tony/Sid, post-1x08.


_some say you're trouble, boy_  
 _just because you like to destroy_  
 _all the things that bring the idiots joy_  
 _well, what's wrong with a little destruction?_

— the fallen, franz ferdinand

* * *

Sometimes, you think you might be a monster, honestly. Other people don't always feel real to you, not even your friends, not even your family— they're puppets that act out a plot, their limbs so easily manipulated into the proper (or most entertaining) place. It's not like you want things to get fucked up beyond repair; you're just having a little fun with the complacent sheep, baaing and baaing while they go about their ordinary, useless lives. Doesn't anyone understand what you mean? Doesn't anyone have the goddamn mental capacity to understand what you mean?

You're just— so fucking _bored_ , every moment of your life. The ecstasy and the pretty white lines of coke and the nameless, faceless girls with their legs spread in front of you, they don't affect you anywhere deep inside. It all goes on and on and on and on and on, and maybe you crossed the line this time but you couldn't sleep and your brain was racing even when your eyes were closed and you had a brilliant scheme after Michelle slipped from your grasp, Abigail batting her eyelashes and pulling off her bra, those pictures hitting Josh at just the right time for maximum humiliation

what

get on your knees übermensch

this is a nightmare you can't drink away

* * *

She's so small, so thin, for fifteen— for lying in this bed with heroin polluting her veins and bruises on her face where she fell and her lips death-blue.

"Hey, Effy," you say quietly, hoarsely. "Can you hear me?"

She doesn't say anything when she's conscious, and she doesn't say anything when she's knocked out. Figures— but that's okay, because that means that every word out of her mouth is infinitely precious.

"I'm so fucking sorry, Effy." You don't cry, you don't ever cry when you can sneer and laugh instead, but you cried last night and you're kind of crying now. "I never meant for this to happen. Mum and Dad think I set it all up, and I know I can be a right bastard, but I swear I didn't mean any of it. Sid and I ran around all night looking for you."

You wonder if they held her down when they jabbed the needle through her arm, if she struggled against them— or (much worse) if she presented herself, arched into it trustingly. You wonder if she'd be doing any of this, ever be in this situation, without you as a shining example. But you can't make up for that, you can't make up for it now, so you settle for taking her (tiny) hand in yours. Listen to the beepbeepbeep of the monitor until it's white noise, nothing at all.

* * *

"They gave Effy an overdose," you exhale, your throat painfully tight. Like anaphylaxis. "She was out of it when I found her on the floor, not really breathing. I tried to call an ambulance, but—"

You never knew how deep humiliation could crawl under your skin before now, how the leaden heaviness could weigh down your proud head. More than anything, you want Sid to stop shoveling food into his mouth while he watches you with wide, shocked eyes, front-row seat to your downfall. He's always looked up to you as though you were a god, admiration illuminating every curve of his face. You don't like this.

"Then they said they'd only call one if I fucked her."

Sid's fork drops with a noisy clatter, one that echoes through your skull. Misophonia. "God, Tony, you didn't—"

You laugh, and the sound comes far too close to a sob for comfort. You blink very rapidly, staring at the lumps of curry on your plate that look like congealed vomit. "Nah. They just wanted to screw with me. Watch me beg. It's not a big deal."

(it'snotabigdealit'snotabigdealit'snotabigdeal it's not it's not it's not)—

This café is too hot, too cramped, too full-up with witnesses to your collapse. Sid reaches across the table, attempts to touch your hand, but you pull away before he can more than graze it. "Give me a cig," you demand hoarsely. "I don't care what kind."

He pulls a loose one from his pocket, palms it over soundlessly— which is good, because your hundred-kph tongue has also sputtered to a stop. Your hands are shaking, the veins bulging out obscene and purple as you fumble with a lighter. Finally, you shove the thing past your lips— douse your lungs in smoke, dry and filthy, feel the nicotine seep into your blood. It's a cheap solution, but for the moment, you aren't drowning above water.

Sid will not stop looking at you. You can't bring yourself to meet his gaze.

* * *

"Why, Tony?" Mum demands from her chair by the bed, her eyes red-rimmed. Dad went out 'to the loo' two hours ago; the man can hold a screaming match with you every morning over your too-loud radio, but he can't be bothered to twist his tongue into a denunciation now. Honestly, you don't even think he's capable of feeling disappointed in you anymore, as disappointment would have to be predicated by him expecting better. "Why would you— you always got on with her, or was that just another one of your games?" Her gaze is dead. You almost wish she'd slap you instead of this. "Where did I go so wrong with you? I suppose what you shoot up is your own business, I can't do anything about that, but dragging your own sister into it?"

Your mother held you in her arms, and sang you to sleep, and went to all of your primary school plays and choir concerts and tennis matches, and now she thinks that you could do this. To anyone. To _Effy_.

"Mum, look at me," you implore, bile rising up your throat. " _Look_ at me! You really think I'd give Effy a fucking overdose? Just for the hell of it?"

"I don't know what to think," she says, her voice icy as she stares out the window. "You're like a snake, Tony— there's nothing human inside. Maybe you got a good laugh from it."

Part of you, the big, rational part, realizes that she woke up to her daughter's near-death. That you were there with Effy, when it all happened. That you didn't protect—

Part of you—

"I love her," comes out in a strangled gasp, and how you hate yourself for that pathetic little confession. What good is your love, Tony Stonem? What good is your paltry, anemic excuse for love? "There were two guys who— they were trying to get back at me— they stuck it in her—"

You can't manage to parse this and create a situation where you are absolved, where you weren't fucking useless and helpless, where they didn't pin you down and strip off your clothes, where you didn't beg and cry for mercy _god please please I know I'm a bastard but she doesn't deserve this please._ Where one moment of impulsivity, of spiteful boredom, didn't end in you wondering if it was better to rape your unconscious sister or just let her die on the floor.

You run.

* * *

THINGS YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE:

• Stopped Effy the first time she snuck out of the house, fourteen, ripped fishnets and tiny skirt and daring half-smile, instead of playing your music loud enough to wake the dead and hiding under her covers. Told Mum and Dad— sure, they would've grounded her into the next century and she would've been sore with you for weeks, but there's shit more important than being liked, more important than her fun.

• Let Michelle go. For God's sake, just let her go, you fucked everything up when you sucked Maxxie's cock, just admit that for once you miscalculated and it can't be salvaged. You don't own her, she's not yours to keep, no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise.

• Not taken Sid for granted— Sid, who you thought orbited you like the earth around the sun, who you thought was incapable of protesting even your worst behavior louder than a squeak—

Sid. That's it.

* * *

You pound the doorbell hard enough for it to imprint itself on your hand, then you pound it again, and again, and again, like you're reciting a prayer, until Sid finally thunders down the stairs and yanks the door open. "Dad's not home, but—"

"Hit me."

"Again?" he asks, looking so innocent, so clueless. So very Sid. "Mate, I thought we already kind of—"

" _Hit_ me," you demand, grabbing him by the collar and pushing him up against the banister. "Fucking do it, you pussy. I know you want to."

"I don't—"

That's when you kiss him, fury and lust and terror all mixed up in the pit of your stomach, and it's _Sid_. You're not in love with him but you do love him more than anyone else, and you always have to hurt those you love.

"Then fuck me," you gasp, reduced to begging now. "Please, Sid." You want this to hurt you want this to hurt you _need_ this to hurt. You don't deserve to forget but you'll detonate if you don't.

Sid is the only person who has ever dared to tell you the truth about yourself, who thinks you're good deep down, and he is the only person you would trust with this kind of vulnerability. "Okay," he says, swallowing hard and not asking any more questions, because even still _he_ trusts _you_. "Okay. But come upstairs. I'm not fucking you against the bloody wall."

* * *

He kisses you sloppily like the blushing virgin he is, desperation and fumbling grasps— but you're too breathless, too damn out of it, to be a better example. You're drowning in his mouth, then you're undoing his zipper, you've tugged your jeans past your thighs, you're on your hands and knees on the mattress. "Hurry up," you mutter, _touch me, make the ghosts of their hands vanish._

But he doesn't start shoving his fingers in there, just stares at you with blatant pity, and isn't it a sad state of affairs when Sid is pitying you? Has the world tilted off its axis yet? "What the hell are you waiting for?" you demand, your neck twisted around to face him. "Just do it. Put it in. God, do you need me to draw you a diagram?"

"No, Tony," he says, shaking his head. His tone is the kind you use on frightened deer. "No, you bloody idiot. You're not even _hard_ , for fuck's sake."

You're... really not hard, you realize— your cock is flaccid, floppy in your palm as you give it a few experimental pumps. Nothing. You suddenly feel very tired, as though the strain of holding yourself up on this bed is going to overwhelm you. "Don't you want to?"

"This isn't exactly how I pictured my first time," he says, and he slips a hand under your shirt, touches the thin skin of your shoulderblades reverentially. As though he's trying to transmute you into someone else— someone stable, someone worthy. You breathe in, breathe out, trusting him, trusting him, while he traces the outline of your ribs, glides down the ridge of your spine.

After a long while, a long long while to your flash bang speed-addled mind, he does reach your cock, and you are hard now and he won't hit you, he won't pull on your hair, he won't leave even more bruises on your battered brain and battered body. "Just relax," he commands as he strokes you, his inexperience obvious but irrelevant. "Just... relax, okay, Tony? Calm down."

(You have fucked so many girls, so many girls so many times in so many places high on so many things. You have never felt this naked before.)

Finally, you come with a low groan, arching your back and biting your lip hard enough to draw a bead of blood. It feels too good, the taste of copper, the flood of heat in your very core. The _tabula rasa_. There is sunlight streaming in through the window, hot and blinding.

"Are you... crying?"

"Of course not," you shoot back, tugging a sleeve across your eyes, "I'm not the goddamn virgin here." And because you really owe Sid more than you can repay, Sid who was warm and there and tangible when you had her body in your arms, you push his stupid baggy cargo pants and stupid Primark boxers down past his hips. He sits up against the headboard and you lie in front of him, move to take his cock into your mouth.

"You don't have to, Tony," he says quietly.

"I know," you say just as quietly, hating how your voice cracks, and then you close your lips around him. The last (the first) time you did this was with Maxxie, cold and teasing and more than a little curious— Sid's gasping and clutching the sheets all too soon, making these whimpery moans every time you swirl your tongue around the tip. Sex is power, sex is power, sex is power, and God isn't this intoxicating, the tiniest bit of control sliding back into your grip? But mostly you want to make him feel good, too— Sid brings all sorts of selfless impulses out in you— so you don't fuck around much, suck hard and fast.

He doesn't last long, _virgin_ , and he emits some kind of embarrassing hiss-squeak as he jerks his hips forward, then slumps on top of the pillows. "Did this... help?" he asks, looking so painfully concerned it makes your heart constrict. "At all? Little bit?"

You could answer, but instead you press your lips against his, let him taste himself on you. Conveys your meaning better than words ever could.

* * *

"It's not your fault."

"Tell my mum that, won't you?"

"No, I'm serious, okay? You're a prick, don't get me wrong, but you love Effy. You wouldn't hurt her."

"I love you, too."

"Fuck, Tone, you're drunk. You don't mean it. You don't mean like... you want us to be boyfriends and shit?"

"Don't flatter yourself— this was a one-time only deal. And pass the damn bottle, you lightweight. You remember when I kissed you in Year Nine?"

"Yeah. 'Cause you felt bad that I hadn't even had my first kiss when you'd already shagged a girl."

"Well, I lied. I kissed you because I wanted to."

"Why the hell would you want to kiss me?"

"Do you always have to ask so many bloody questions? 'Cause you're not rubbish. Quit thinking you're rubbish already. Reflects badly on me."

Sid drops the bottle and leans over to kiss you. His mouth is warm and soft and faintly fizzy. You know somewhere deep in your bones that the two of you will never be TonyandSid again, that without Michelle you're a stool with a missing leg, but you thread your hands through his hair anyway and shove him down against the couch cushions.

* * *

"I've really fucked it all up lately," you tell your sleeping sister. You wonder what her dreams are about, if they're as peaceful as she looks. You wonder what she'll have to say to you once she wakes up. "But I'm going to make things right. I promise. One way or another."


End file.
